Ducati podium drought, Stoner podium run

Ducati has now gone 13 races without a podium finish, ever since Valentino Rossi finished third at last year's French MotoGP at Le Mans.

Ducati has now gone 13 races without a podium finish, ever since Valentino Rossi finished third at last year's French MotoGP at Le Mans.

That is the longest sequence of successive races for Ducati without a podium since they entered the MotoGP class at the start of 2003.

Experiencing contrasting podium fortunes is the factory's former rider Casey Stoner, who has finished on the last 15 MotoGP rostrums for Honda, ever since Jerez last year where he crashed after being collected by a falling Rossi.